Across the Country, Dancing in Solidarity for 24 Grueling Hours

Miguel Gutierrez, above, is to represent New York in his dance piece freedom of information, joined by dancers in other states. Credit
Alex Escalante

For those of you at a loss as to how to see out the old year and break in the new, here is a suggestion: How about watching someone, blindfolded and wearing earplugs, move continuously in one space for 24 hours? How about doing it yourself?

As of Monday afternoon there were still 19 spots open in “freedom of information 2008,” organized by the choreographer Miguel Gutierrez in response to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The work consists, ideally, of an improvisational solo by a participant in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia; the solos will be performed in the 24 hours that constitute Dec. 31 in each location, starting at 12:01 a.m.

Mr. Gutierrez, 37, will represent New York at the Barn in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. This is not his first foray into endurance art but an expansion of “freedom of information,” which he performed by himself in 2001. Reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks, the invasion of Afghanistan and what he described as “this Bush thing of just creating a state of terror,” he followed his gut.

“I just had a strong instinct to be moving,” Mr. Gutierrez said recently in his Brooklyn apartment. “The idea of what it is to be a refugee or a person who’s disrupted by an armed conflict is so terribly abstract to me, really. I had to create some sort of thing that created a very weak, perhaps, but somehow partial analogue to understanding what that is.”

The original “freedom of information” was a physically and emotionally intense experience for Mr. Gutierrez. Video documentation gives a sense of this: toward the end, he resembles a marathon runner pushed far beyond his limits of endurance and into a trancelike state impressive, even on tape, for its rawness and vulnerability.

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In 2001, above and below, Mr. Gutierrez performed it alone. (Fritz Welch drew on the wall.)

Small blooms of movement, like the flick of a beautifully pointed foot morphing into a shuffling walk with arms extended, evoke all manner of troubling narratives when done by an exhausted, blindfolded man. His white T-shirt becomes dirty and torn; the walls of the studio take on a faint red patina, as Mr. Gutierrez repeatedly slides against them in his red sweatpants.

Still, Mr. Gutierrez is all too aware that he cannot know what refugees endure. He emphasized that he was not attempting to equate, even indirectly, his willed action with forced suffering.

“What I can be direct about is a sense of solidarity with the other artists who are doing this, and this, at least, notion of a shared commitment to saying, ‘We will take these 24 hours together to go through some intense state of contemplation,’ ” he said. “I’m inviting people to consider displacement and war. I am sure a ton of other things will enter people’s thought processes: about their lives, about death, about life, about all kinds of things. And that’s exciting to me.”

Mr. Gutierrez’s sense of communal purpose is evident on freedomofinformation2008.blogspot.com, which he created to document the work and to allow viewers to follow many participants through Ustream.tv channels. Some of the soloists were recruited by Mr. Gutierrez; others he has never met.

Their comments reveal motivations both shared and diverse. The Massachusetts representative, Jesse Zaritt, talked of his deep ties to Israel. Brianna Skellie, who will perform in Hawaii, wrote in an e-mail message: “Whenever I tell people about the event I talk about how soldiers, fighting for a cause they may or may not believe in, often without the luxury of feeling secure or being able to stop and relax, are also important to remember.”

Marissa Perel, the Illinois representative, roomed with Mr. Gutierrez in 2001 and watched much of the original performance. In a phone interview, she spoke of the various political ramifications she saw in the shared action, and of how the resistance she had encountered to the work from Chicagoans underlined for her its importance. She hypothesized that many people, especially in the city where President-elect Barack Obama lives, were eager for a “quick fix” and wanted to be done with problems they associated with President Bush’s tenure.

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But Ms. Perel also spoke of a very particular motivation. In 2001 she shattered most of the bones on her right side when she slammed into a tree while inner-tubing in the snow. When Mr. Gutierrez invited her to perform, she said, she was eager, but scared that her body would fail her. She deliberated until October, when, she said, “I sat down with myself and just said, you survived so many things with your body that probably you’re going to be able to do this.” Participation for her is as much an act of celebration as of protest.

Ms. Perel’s solo, to be performed in her home, will be open to the public. Others, like Mr. Zaritt, who also watched the 2001 work, are opting for invited guests only. But he is asking many more people to keep him in mind throughout New Year’s Eve, creating a sort of audience of wakefulness.

“What dance does best for me is promote a kind of awareness, a kind of sensitivity and a kind of consciousness about the body,” he said of his reason for participating. He also talked about the sense of helplessness that he and many of his peers feel as artists confronting sweeping geopolitical conflicts.

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“How can dance be a factor in this crisis, in determining some kind of action or solution in the face of this trauma?” he asked. “Part of me thinks dance can’t do this.”

“And then,” he added, “the rest of me is saying, dance is my lens, so it has to be the way in which I approach creating anything in response to this. And that’s exactly what Miguel teaches and performs.

“In a way he’s saying dance can’t do anything for the world. Yet everything he does with his teaching and work says the opposite, which is: Dance can change us, and then we can change the world.”

Miguel Gutierrez will perform “freedom of information 2008” starting at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday at the Barn, 257 North Henry Street, No. 3, Greenpoint, Brooklyn; freedomofinformation2008.blogspot.com. Admittance throughout the 24 hours of Dec. 31 is free.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C6 of the New York edition with the headline: Across the Country, Dancing in Solidarity for 24 Grueling Hours. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe